![]() ![]() With visitors engaged, keepers and presenters then share their knowledge to help audiences perceive animals’ emotions and understand why they’re acting certain ways, and to correct misinformation. “Kids really seem to understand when we ask them, ‘Hey, how many of you guys like when your parents force you to do something you don’t want to do?’ The same goes for animals,” says Rachel Salant, curator of behavioral husbandry and ambassador animals at Woodland Park Zoo. In the ZooVentures programs, for example, animals are trained to show when they do and don’t want to participate in performances. And they support animals in making choices that meet their needs and show off their free will. They react calmly to animals that popular culture makes out to be scary or gross, like cockroaches and opossums. They show empathy by treating animals as individuals who have traits we can relate to: names, pronouns and favorite snacks and activities. Zookeepers and program presenters model the kind of compassionate behavior they want audiences to use toward animals. ![]() Respectively, these types help us sense other people’s emotions, understand why those emotions are bubbling up and - most important for zoos and aquariums - prompt concerns that drive our desire to help. Leading psychologists like Paul Ekman parse out empathy into three different categories: affective, cognitive and compassionate. By 2018, they had received an award from the Association of Zoos & Aquariums (AZA) for developing best practices and getting other zoos and aquariums involved. Grants followed and so did more ideas and questions: What does it mean to have empathy toward animals, they wondered, and do we even know the best ways to inspire it in zoo settings?Ĭalling themselves the Measuring Empathy: Collaborative Assessment Project, the local partners looked at the scientific research that had already been done on the topic of empathy toward animals. But the more we started to look at and think about it, the more we realized that we weren't being as intentional or strategic as we could be,” Wharton says. ![]() “Obviously, empathy happens at a zoo or aquarium. How it startedĪround 2014, a philanthropic group approached three Puget Sound organizations - the Woodland Park Zoo, Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium and the Seattle Aquarium - for help creating a grant program for zoos and aquariums around empathy. Woodland Park Zoo and other animal care institutions around Puget Sound started this trend toward building empathy for animals at zoos and aquariums around the country, with a strong backing from scientific research. And those opportunities are increasingly rare because we remove ourselves so much ,” says Jim Wharton, the Seattle Aquarium’s director of conservation engagement and learning. “You can think about zoos and aquariums like empathy gyms - places in our community where we can go and feel connections with animals. Employees say it’s incumbent upon them to inspire visitors to help conservation efforts that protect zoo animals’ wild counterparts (and human communities animals share space with) from threats like climate change and habitat loss.Ī burgeoning group of conservators at zoos and aquariums believes honing empathy through their work is the way that will happen. Zoos and aquariums are some of the most accessible conservation spaces where people and animals meet. This process - of highlighting Annabelle’s individuality and agency, and helping zoo visitors appreciate that she can make choices that meet her own needs - is part of a yearslong initiative to increase visitors’ empathy toward animals and maybe even toward other humans. “Sometimes the sidekicks go a little rogue.… She likes to hog the spotlight,” he riffs, children clapping as Annabelle takes initiative. But as Annabelle happily bounds in another direction, the actor shrugs and leans into the chaos. “Annabelle, we’re going over here,” her human counterpart laughs. But on a bright August afternoon in front of a crowd of four dozen parents and kids, she increased her stage time. Annabelle’s part usually lasts only a few moments, long enough to trot out and take a treat. She’s part of a 15-minute quest to help magically debunk fear-inspiring misconceptions a villain is spreading about animals. In Woodland Park Zoo’s “ZooVenture: A Hero's Tail,” Annabelle - a spaniel-sized potbellied pig in the zoo’s animal ambassador program - is supposed to help a human actor hide a powerful magic wand. ![]()
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